


Incurable in each, the wounds they make

by Flyting



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Awful people hurting each other, Child Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emperor Hux, Harm to Children, Hux is Not Nice, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Post Mpreg, Rape/Non-con Elements, a/b/o dynamics, basically it's medea with mpreg, very dark, very dramatised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:25:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8822320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flyting/pseuds/Flyting
Summary: Kylo builds his mate a gilded cage and hopes that it will be enough, but Hux will never forget what was taken from him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Dark Kylux A/B/O with a heavy dose of inspiration from Greek Tragedy. Deliberately melodramatic. Probably over-the-top. I wrote this while heavily influenced by cold meds. Title is from Medea by Euripides. Basically it's popcorn angst.

“What are we going to name them?” Kylo cannot stop smiling. His children. Something low and primal inside of him wants to roar with pride. _These are mine_. Mine, mine mine.

The boy had fussed until Hux had laid him against his chest, his ear over Hux’s heart, and that- the sight of _his_ omega cradling their child does things to him he doesn’t have words for. If their girl wasn’t asleep in the crook of Kylo’s arm, if Hux wasn’t so wan and lethargic, he could mount him again right there. Fuck another child into him in the same bed where he just delivered their last. He feels bestial. 

His daughter makes a sleepy, sticky noise, dragging his attention back to her, and the heat of his passion shifts. His daughter. _Their_ daughter. She will move mountains and shake empires. She will bring the galaxy to its knees. But first she needs a name.

“Whatever you like,” Hux says. He has stubbornly refused to contribute any of the times Kylo has brought up the subject of names. Perhaps naming before the birth was bad luck on his planet.

“You must have some preference.” When Hux remains stubbornly unforthcoming, Kylo continues, “I was thinking Raina for her.”  
  
“Fine.”

“Or maybe Armé. What do you think? It’s almost like a version of-”  
  
Hux looks like he would snap if he had the energy, “I don’t care. Just pick one.”

Kylo considers, lips pursed. He wants to argue- _these are your children of course you care-_ but Hux seems so tired. “Raina,” he murmurs finally, like a prayer.

“And the other one?”

“You choose.” His voice is firm. “It’s only fair, if I named our daughter,” he adds to forestall the ‘I don’t care’ he can see hovering on Hux’s lips. _Our daughter. Our daughter’s name is Raina._

Hux sighs, shrugs. “Brendol, then.” He plucks the word out of the air carelessly.  
  
“After your father?”

A vague grunt is all the response he gets.  
  
“Are you sure? I didn’t think you liked your father that much.”  
  
“ _Yes,_ Ren, I’m sure.”  
  
“Alright. Brendol.” Kylo tries out the word. _His son’s name is Brendol._

Kylo decides he doesn’t love it, it was sort of stodgy, but he got to pick Raina after all.

Nodding at the pink little thing sound asleep on Hux’s chest he says, “I think Brendol likes you better _.”_

“He spent nine months listening to my heartbeat. It’s familiar is all.” Hux shifts underneath the baby. “You can take him now. He’s asleep.”  
  
“Why? He seems fine there.”  
  
“I want to get up.”

Sighing, Kylo shifts Raina, who makes an unhappy noise at the movement, so that he can lean over and cradle his infant son in both hands. He carefully lifts Brendol up off of Hux’s chest. The baby is so impossibly small. Kylo can’t shake the feeling that he’s going to break him. How could anything survive that was so small and delicate?  
  
Because he would protect it, Kylo realize as he resettles both children against him. It crashes over him like a wave. These small, pink, fragile things were his to protect. His children. He had to protect them from cold and hunger and pain, from enemies and-

“Why are you making that face?” Hux asks as he rolls out of the bed, pressing one hand against the barely-healed incision on his stomach as he moves. The tissue regenerator had left a red line behind, still tender.  
  
“I just… never thought about how small they’d be. They’re so helpless.” He hates how rough his voice sounds. Too loud, everything in the galaxy is too rough, too harsh for these soft little things that they had made.

“You’re just now realizing that?”  
  
“I guess so. I’ve never been a parent before.”

Hux looks at him, long and expressionless before walking into the refresher and shutting the door.

Normally Hux reminds him of a star; distant and shining, so bright sometimes that Kylo can barely stand to look at him. But in that moment he is as cold and empty as the depths of space. His eyes seem to have sucked all the warmth from the room, leaving Kylo wanting to curl himself around their pups for heat, like an animal.

Later Kylo leaves both their children with Hux while he makes a round of the ship. He has both his and Hux’s duties to oversee, and the thought that _his children are on board_ fills him with a newfound fervor to see that everything, down to the smallest rivet, is working perfectly. Hux had wanted to take care of his own affairs himself, had insisted that he felt fine to be up and about, but medical had agreed with Kylo that the omega needed to rest, and anyway he had barely held their children at all in the days since they’d been born.

“I held them for nine months,” Hux sniped blandly. “I’d like to check my messages.”

Privately, Kylo is concerned that Hux doesn’t seem to _want_ to be near their children. He foists them into Kylo’s arms at every opportunity, holding Raina in his hands away from his body until she whines and Kylo takes her and cradles her against his broad chest.

His worry must bleed into his features, because one of the medics, a hatchet-faced woman with a severe bun, smiles at him. “A little detachment isn’t uncommon. It’s the stress. Has he lost a litter before?”  
  
“Yes.” It is not the entirety of the truth, but it is enough for the likes of her.  
  
She gives a little grunt of sympathy. “He’s nervous. Give it time. They’ll bond.”

In between making his rounds, navigating meetings with personnel and sticking his nose into every deck just to make sure things are working well, Kylo swings by Hux’s office. He obligingly forwards all of the high security messages that have come in to Hux’s datapad. Hux will want to check them personally and if there is something Hux wants then his mate will get it for him. It is Kylo’s job to take care of him too, after all.

Curious, he pulls up the security holovid for their bedroom.

Hux is lying on his side on their bed, his legs curled close to his body, and their son- he knows it’s Brendol because Raina has a little shock of dark hair right at the crown of her head- lying in the little hollow between. The baby is fussing while Hux reads reports on his datapad and idly pats Brendol’s belly with the other hand to calm him.

It’s the gentlest Kylo has seen him behave towards either of their children. Hux barely touches them when Kylo’s there, darting little glances at him the whole while like he’s…

Afraid. Like he’s to touch them with Kylo around, but that was ridiculous- these were _his_ children, surely Hux had to know he wouldn’t hurt his own children.

While Kylo watches, Hux turns the datapad face-down on the mattress and sighs, bringing his hand up to rub at his eyes. Kylo can see his mouth moving as he hushes the baby. _I know, sweet, I know._

Hesitant, as if he’s afraid of what he’s about to do, Hux leans down and nudges at the crook of Brendol’s neck with his nose, comforting him. It works. The baby quiets at his parent’s closeness, his scent. Hux lays there for long moments, breathing in the soft clean skin which Kylo knows smells of salt and milk and _them._

The gesture should be sweet, tender, but it makes his stomach tense into knots.

_Hux nuzzling at his dead son’s neck, the way his body curled, protective over the small figure on the floor, his hand fisted in the front of the little uniform shirt, and he was keening like a broken thing-_

Kylo slams his fist on the console, shutting off the holo.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Hux swings at him as soon as the door slides open._

_Kylo Ren dodges easily, and the clenched fist connects with nothing but air. Hux overbalances, having thrown his full weight into the failed punch, and an elbow to the small of his back sends him stumbling, almost sprawling, before he finds his feet and snarls, the sound of grief and incoherent rage, rounding on Kylo again. He attacks with more raw emotion than finesse; teeth bared, fingers digging into Kylo’s thick robes searching for flesh to tear and bruise. Up close, the seductive heat-scent hanging heavy on the omega is unmistakable. He smells like sun-warmed sex and need._  
  
_“I’ll kill you-“_  
  
_Kylo blocks a sharp jab to his ribs, shoving, before bringing his knee up to deflect a boot aimed at his balls. Hux is snarling, hair falling into eyes that are fever-bright with hatred. Spittle flecks in the corner of his mouth. “_ Fucking _\- die, I’ll_ kill _you-“_  
  
_“Enough,” Kylo says, freezing Hux in place with a raised hand. The general lets out a rough sound like the restraint is agony, though Kylo knows that it isn’t.  “It was painless, I promise.”_

_He is a monster, but he is a judicious one. Pain was a weapon to be used with precision, not something inflicted carelessly. The child’s suffering wasn’t necessary._

_But Hux is furious long past sense. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you bastard fucking filth- murderer- fuck-“ Every cell in his body is vibrating with how intensely he is fighting Kylo’s hold over him. “I’m going to have you put down like the animal you are, but not before I make you beg me to end your pain, monster- fucking bastard-“ the litany of rage trails off into a shrill animal keening, like the low pained sounds Hux had made as he cradled his child’s limp body in his arms._  
  
_Kylo’s master had warned him to expect this but it is still uncomfortable to watch. He wants to look away, sun-blinded by Hux’s raw animal grief.  
  
__"My master has already approved our bond. There's no use in fighting it."_  
  
_“You killed him, you killed my-“ His voice hitches on a sob. Even with his normally pale cheeks a sticky, splotchy red, and his hair plastered to his forehead, he is still desirable. Singularly perfect. The omega scent of him curls low in Kylo’s belly, tugging. His lips are full and flushed pink, begging to be kissed._

_Stepping forward, Kylo hushes him. “I know. Shh, it’ll be alright,” His eyes dart again to Hux’s slick, wet lips._

_Kylo will have what he wants, he can afford to be considerate._  
  
_“-don’t you dare touch me, don’t-“ Hux writhes in the invisible hold and keens again when Kylo curls a hand over the small of his back. Even through the material of his uniform and Kylo’s gloves, Hux’s skin feels feverish. Desperate. Wanting._

_Kylo wants to tug him closer, to bury his face in the crook of his neck, and so he does, marveling at how soft, how accepting Hux smells. Kylo feels flush himself. He is half-drunk on the relief of it._

_Hux had no idea how galling it was, the scent of it constantly on his skin. The sharp, bitter reek of another alpha’s child marking the omega as sure as a brand. Every second, every day, it was a glaring reminder that Hux had been claimed by someone else. That he belonged to someone else._

_Not yours, never ever yours._

_It drove him mad. The first time Kylo had ever met him, he thought the omega was perfect, so perfect in every way- beautiful, intelligent, fierce- the only person who has ever been fit to stand by Kylo’s side as they restored order to the galaxy. Getting General Hux assigned to the Finalizer as his co-commander had been the only boon Kylo had ever begged his master for._

_But then trailing behind him like a comet there was that child. Soft reddish-blonde curls and pale eyes, clinging to the edge of Hux’s greatcoat as they debarked the shuttle together, and Hux’s hand curled fierce and protective over the boy’s narrow shoulder. That shrill voice always interrupting, "Papa, papa look-" and Hux allowing it, coddling and indulging. Disgusting._

_He never met the alpha who had fathered it, although he thought sometimes that he would know him instantly, his reek was so pervasive on the child. There were rumors that he was dead, a victim of Hux’s ruthlessly backstabbing rise to power, cast aside once his purpose had been served. A child to continue his bloodline, an end to distracting biological cycles. An omega wouldn't go into heat when surrounded by the smell of their own child._

_Kylo hoped that he was dead, for the crime of daring to touch his omega. For leaving his filth inside of him, breeding him and leaving that infuriating reminder of his existence behind to taunt Kylo with the fact that Hux would never be his-_

_Yes, Kylo is an animal. But so is Hux._

_He is fighting the urge to melt against Kylo. His heat hit so sharp and sudden, dragged in on a tidal wave of grief, and the poor man is still reeling with it. Anguish and base need are tearing him apart. Hatred._

_Kylo can sympathize._

_Every part of Hux wants Kylo dead, he wasn’t lying about that. But just as much as he wants to take Kylo apart piece by piece, his body wants to be filled, to be fucked full and pregnant, millennia of instinct is screaming at him to fill the sudden gaping void in him with another pup. Scrambling to be bred, and quickly, to replace what’s been lost. Biology, the urge to reproduce, is inescapable, especially for an omega. Kylo is strong and powerful and right there._

_Hux wants and hates himself for wanting._

_Kylo drags his tongue up the side of Hux’s neck, lapping behind his ear, startling a moan out of the smaller man._

_“I’ll fix everything,” he mutters in Hux’s ear as he backs him towards the bed. “Fill you up, give you what you need. You’re mine now.”_

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ll give you anything you want,” He lays kisses like promises against Hux’s throat. “Tell me.”

They are safe in their shared quarters- once they were mated, Kylo had insisted Hux move in with him, to be where Kylo could take care of him- and it is the end of a shift. Their children are sleeping peacefully in the other room. Hux won’t go into heat again, not with the comforting smell of his own offspring around, but that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy himself. Can’t enjoy _Kylo._

He just needs to relax. He’s been driven like a man possessed, working almost non-stop since medical cleared him to return to active duty six months ago.

“Anything?” his voice is expressionless, as it so often is these days.

“Anything. Everything. You’re mine,” he explains. Hux was his mate. He would take care of his mate. “Name it.”

Hux turns in the circle of his arms, cold, stiff limbs suddenly becoming sinuous, and a pale, ungloved hand comes up to stroke Kylo’s jaw. The touch makes him whine. His omega was so beautiful, all cool arrogance. Perfect. Untouchable, and so, so deadly. Didn’t Hux know how much he made him _want_ , how much Kylo would do for him…

Hux traps Kylo between his hands, thumbs stroking the soft skin under his ears. For just a moment there is something like disgust on his face, as if he's considering snapping Kylo's neck in his hands, before it slips behind that icy mask.

“Everything _."_ His eyes are dark and Kylo bites the cruel expression off of his lips.

 

 

Hux is crowned Emperor on Raina and Brendol’s first birthday.

Kylo holds their daughter, a thin circlet of gold balanced precariously in her dark hair, as the assembled senators and kings bow before his mate. Brendol is by Kylo’s side, one chubby hand fisted in his, awed by the crowd and by his other father, resplendent in his finery.

Kylo thinks he has never seen Hux more beautiful than today, clad in white and gold, his hair shining like burnished copper. He even smiles, just a little, and that, more than any public display of fealty, makes it all worthwhile.

For all his part in it, Kylo is content to stand aside, surveying his handiwork while Hux takes the throne alone. All of this is his. He doesn’t need a ceremony to make it so. His omega, his children, his empire. He has built his mate a throne on the bones of their enemies, washed the galaxy in their blood.

He hadn’t wanted to kill his master. Snoke’s death is the one thing he regrets. Whenever Kylo had imagined the day he would finally achieve his destiny and undo the last pathetic remnants of the Republic, he had always pictured his master there to congratulate him. After all, he was the closest thing to a father Kylo had ever known.

But Hux had demanded, and it was his duty to provide for his mate.

Their children will inherit an empire. It is the least he can do- the least he will do- for his family.

 

 

“Birr!“ Raina says, pointing with one hand at the brightly-colored mollymauk perched in a tree. They are in the garden, the four of them, for some family time at Kylo’s insistence. Hux will work all day and never see their children, if he lets him.

“That’s right,” Hux says vaguely, nose buried in datapad. “It’s a bird,” and bounces her idly on his knee.

“Here birr!” she calls up. “C’here!”

Kylo pauses in playing with Brendol to stretch out one hand, wrapping the Force around the startled mollymauk and pulling it closer as it attempts to fly off. Frantic wings beat the air uselessly. Kylo feels more than sees Hux rolling his eyes.

“She likes it,” he says, defensive.  
  
“You’re torturing it.”

Raina squeals in delight as Kylo holds the bird close to her but just out of reach. Her brother toddles over to her side. “Bren loo’ birr! Loo’! Da, birr!”  
  
“Mmm-hmm,” Hux agrees without looking. “I see the poor bird.”  
  
“Should we keep it?”

“Why not? I’m sure you can build it a lovely cage.”

There is an edge to the words that Kylo can't decipher.

Brendol gets bored with the mollymauk first and goes to look over Hux’s shoulder at the datapad. He points questioningly.

“He wants to know what you’re doing that’s so interesting.” Kylo translates. It is well past his second birthday and Brendol still does not speak, not in words anyway. Hux is endlessly scornful of what he sees as a developmental delay as _something wrong_ with their son. Kylo has tried to explain that Brendol doesn’t need to speak. He has other ways of communicating- his own rich, beautiful language, like music, that spills out through the Force. Silent images and sensations which he crafts into something far beyond words.

His son is going to be the most powerful Force user in a century, Kylo knows it.

“I can tell what he means, Ren.”

“I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself.” He releases the poor mollymauk, to Raina’s disappointment, moving to stand behind his mate and run a hand over his shoulder.

“It’s the trade agreements for Bespin, it wouldn’t interest you.”

“I like trade agreements,” he says, leaning down to nose at Hux’s neck, where the omega smells most strongly of them. Even after years together, the scent alone is enough to make him stir.

“What are you doing about those pirates along the Alabrax trade route?” Hux says abruptly, shifting out of his embrace and dislodging Raina onto the grass. “They’ve attacked three ships in the past six months. If your knights can’t handle some petty little scavengers then-“ the rest of the words are muffled when Kylo leans forward to peck him on the lips. With his father suitably distracted, Brendol pulls the datapad out of Hux’s fingers and replaces it with his chubby hand.

“The pirates will still be there tomorrow,” Kylo says.

“That’s the problem.”

“Hux,” he says, warning, and kisses him again. “Our children are here now. Look at them. They need you.”

Hux doesn’t answer, but the datapad stays discarded on the grass.

 

 

 

 

“Brendol thinks you hate him,” Kylo says as he undresses for bed one night. Their son is nearing five years old, and still reacts to being told to _use your words_ the way a painter might to being handed a lump of coal and being told to craft a masterpiece. Kylo is used to translating for him.

Hux pauses in buttoning up his top. “Did he tell you why?” He asks, strangely expressionless.

When Kylo had gone to tuck the children in to bed, Brendol had been sitting on the floor drawing with his color sticks. There were sheets of animals, shapes, and one of Kylo standing in between the twins.  
  
Kylo had asked him why Hux wasn’t in the picture too, and Brendol had simply started to draw again, adding a tall figure with almost cartoonish red hair and a smaller figure colored to match. They were standing together away from the others.

Something almost like sadness was rolling off of Brendol in waves. Despair, and something more- there was something he didn’t want to show to Kylo. A knowledge that filled him with quiet resignation like a clock ticking down. Kylo tries to redirect him to the clock. Instead, Brendol carefully crafted an image of himself trying to wrap his arms around a sad-looking Hux, but being rebuffed by an invisible force. Querulousness ricocheted through him . He felt like he had done something wrong.

“No, but he’s upset. You need to talk to him.”

“Fine. Tomorrow.”

Two words gnaw at him, have been gnawing at him quietly for what feels like years, but it isn’t until they are in bed, his mate beside him where he belongs, that Kylo has the nerve to speak them. “Do you?”

“Do I what?” Hux mutters sleepily.

“Do you hate them?” He very nearly says _us._

Hux is silent for so long, lying on his side facing away, that Kylo thinks he’s fallen asleep. “No.”

A small weight breaks free and lifts off his chest.

“I want to, though.”

Words come easier in the dark, “ _Why_?”

“Because it makes things easier.”

Kylo remembers Hux nuzzling at Brendol’s neck when he was a baby, the same way he had done to-

“You still love him.” the words are out, shamefully accusatory, before he can stop them. He remembers the picture Brendol had drawn, Hux standing beside another little boy. “You love him more than them.”

The only answer is a chilly silence from the other side of the bed.

 

 

 

As the twins’ fifth birthday comes and goes, Kylo is filled with restless malaise. It feels like something is coming, only he can’t quite tell what. There is a pressure heavy in the air, like a storm is approaching. The Force is restless, Brendol is restless, but neither of them will tell him _why_.

When the storm breaks, he is down in the archives. It is his singular hobby, now that he no longer needs to actively hunt Force users across the galaxy. Kylo is overseeing the arrival of a precious Jedi manuscript, brought from a far corner of the galaxy when the commlink on his belt chirps. It’s Hux.

“You never once asked me his name.”

“What?” Kylo asks, confused.

“My son.”

It is a long moment before he realizes that Hux doesn’t mean Brendol.

“I’m sorry. What was his name?” Some long buried instinct keeps his response level and calm. There is something broken in Hux, like a fissure in a fine vase. He can’t ignore it anymore, but he can at least avoid making it any worse.

He knew the boy’s name, of course. It had been in Hux’s personnel file. But there is something in Hux’s voice right now, an emptiness which fills him with creeping dread.  
  
“It was Corvin. Did you know he was five years old when you killed him?”

“Hux, why are you telling me this now?” Kylo asks quietly.

It had been nothing, at the time, to snap the boy’s fragile neck. Hux was the one he wanted- there was no reason for the child to suffer, and so Kylo didn’t even give him time to cry out.

He doesn’t like to think about it anymore.  Hux’s son. The children at Skywalker’s Academy. Being a father has softened him. He cannot remember them anymore without picturing Brendol and Raina in their places.  
  
“Because I want you to know what it felt like. I’ve been waiting for five years.”  
  
The words slip down his back like ice water. “Hux-“ he says, the word sticking in his throat.

“Run, Kylo,” Hux’s voice is flat. “You won’t make it in time, but I’d like to see you try. Run.”

He is halfway up the stairs, the priceless Jedi manuscript abandoned on the floor, when he senses Brendol crying out in fear and alarm.

 

 

 

“It was painless, I promise,” Hux says softly when the door to the children’s room flies open. He is staring out the window at the distant treetops. 

“No, no-“ Kylo cannot bring himself to look at the crumpled figures side by side in Raina’s bed – _his daughter-_ it isn’t true, if he doesn’t look then they’re only sleeping.

“Hux, what have you done?”

_Only sleeping, only sleeping- Raina was impossible to wake up in the mornings-_

“It’ll be alright. We can have more. I remember how much you enjoyed the first time-”

The window is open and it is easy, so easy, to lift Hux off of his feet until he is dangling half out of it, Kylo’s grip on the front of his shirt the only thing keeping him from falling to the courtyard below. Hux doesn’t fight him.

“Why?” his voice shakes, his hands shake. _Why, why, why_ \- Any moment he is going to shatter into a thousand pieces and this pain will end. Please, please, let it end. “They were your-“ his voice falters on the word _children._

“You murdered my son because he wasn’t yours and raped me while his body was still warm.” The words are cold, as if there is no more emotion left in his body to warm them. “Every time you’ve ever touched me I’ve dreamt about this.”

 “I never-“ _meant for this to happen, wanted to hurt you, thought you would ever do this-_

And Brendol knew. He always knew. _Brendol_ \- His mind reaches out, unthinking, for his son’s and touches nothing but mocking emptiness.

There’s a low keening sound, and he realizes it’s him.

“If you’re going to kill me would you kindly get it over with?” Hux says, hanging half out of the window. “I’d like to go and be with my children.”  
  
It would be a mercy to end this pain, Kylo realizes, and he has only lived with it for five minutes. Mercy is the least he owes his mate. And yet, and yet, and yet he does not want to bear this pain alone. Does not want to be alone in this room with two too-small bodies he still cannot bring himself to look at-   
  
Kylo looks at his hands fisted in the front of Hux's shirt and decides.

 

 


End file.
